Grammar as a phenomenon – a subsystem of language as a linguistic discipline

Discreteness – non- discreteness which embraces countable and uncountable nouns
Discrete counts form the inflexional opposition
Non-pl.- pl. dog⁻-dogs⁺
Non-pl. – a single object having distinct outer boundaries
Pl. – a set of homogeneous objects having distinct inner and outer boundaries
Indiscrete uncounts constitute the lexico-gram. opposition of subclasses of nouns:
Sg. Only – pl. only
Sg. only – indiscrete entities having no boundaries ->mainly abstract and material uncounts
Pl.only (see pract. Grammar)
THE CATEGORY OF NUMBER
Discreteness Non-discreteness

morphological c. lexico-gram. subclass

Non-pl.(oneness) Sg. only
- a single discrete entity - indiscrete entities, no boundaries
Pl.(more –than- oneness) Pl. only
- multiplicity of discrete entities <…>
Bloh Pl only
The characteristic of the uncountable nouns which denote objects consisting of two halves (trousers, scissors, tongs, spectacles, etc.), the nouns expressing some sort of collective meaning, i.e. rendering the idea of indefinite plurality, both concrete and abstract (supplies, outskirts, clothes, parings; tidings, earnings, contents, politics; police, cattle, poultry, etc.), the nouns denoting some diseases as well as some abnormal states of the body and mind (measles, rickets, mumps, creeps, hysterics, etc.). As is seen from the examples, from the point of view of number as such, the absolute plural forms can be divided into set absolute plural (objects of two halves) and non-set absolute plural (the rest).


8. The noun. The category of case
Noun as a part of speech:

3. 
   Semantic – a part of speech which categorial meaning is thingness
   
4. 
   Formal – a) form-building – the category of number, the category of case, the category of gender, the category of article determination
   

b) derivational – typical word-building patterns: suffixation, compounding, convertion (to walk – a walk)
3) Functional – a) combinability: left-hand prepositional combinability with another N/V/Adj./Adv. [+ prep.Noun],casal combinability [N's+N]( .: the speech of the President — the President's speech), contact comb-ty [N+N]- stone-wall constructions, take an intermediary position between compound nouns and noun phrases (stone wall, car roof, speech sound), comb-ty with articles and other determiners [art./det. + N]
b) Syntactic functions – subject, object, other functions are less typical
Nouns fall into several subclasses which differ as to their semantic and grammatical properties: common — proper, concrete — abstract, countable — uncountable (count — non-count, count — mass), animate — inanimate, personal — non-personal (human — non-human).
Lexico- semantic variants of nouns may belong to different subclasses: paper — a paper, etc.